In the ruling, the FTC didn’t find enough evidence that Google was favoring its own products in search results over those offered by rivals. As long as Google is delivering relevant information for the sake of a positive user experience, the FTC said, the company isn’t being unfair to competitors.

Using software from ITA Software, Google returns data about flights as a direct answer when a user searches for a flight. For example, if you type in a flight number, it will return data about arrival and departure time, and even gate arrivals. And reviews from newly acquired Zagat appear next to places when called up on Google Maps.

In a statement, a Yelp spokesman said: “Today’s announcement by the FTC that it is closing its investigation into Google’s anti-competitive behavior in search represents a deeply disappointing missed opportunity to protect innovation in the Internet economy, and the consumers and businesses that rely upon it. We look for the regulatory bodies continuing their investigation to have greater success.”

Separately, Google did agree to refrain from misappropriating, or scraping, content from rival’s websites, such as restaurant reviews. But it had already scaled back this practice, and has allowed websites to opt out of Google search results altogether.

Then there’s Microsoft.The company devoted people, money and executive attention to lobby regulators and other Google competitors to ensure Google was dented by a regulatory review. Those efforts largely failed, dealing a big blow to Microsoft’s psyche and interests.

Microsoft had no immediate comment about the FTC-Google agreement. But in a blog post Wednesday, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner expressed skepticism that Google could “be trusted on the basis of non-binding assurances that it will not abuse its market position further.”

As for its business interests, Microsoft has a competing search engine, Bing, and any opportunity to drive additional traffic from Google to Bing would fall in Microsoft’s favor. Microsoft on Wednesday also reiterated a longstanding gripe that Google’s YouTube doesn’t allow Microsoft-powered smartphones the same data access allocated to iPhone or Android devices. The FTC didn’t specifically address Microsoft’s complaint, which some analysts have said is unfounded.

One question is whether this settlement will hurt Apple’s Sirivirtual assistant. Google’s competing software, Google Now, which seeks to return a single answer to any kind of query or question, will continue to have access to universal data available on Google’s sites. Siri, by contrast, uses partner data to deliver results and also searches Google.

But Opus Research analyst Greg Sterling says the settlement means very little for Siri, which works on iPhones and iPads. Siri relies heavily on partnerships with Yelp Yahoo and others. It is one of the most prominent in a field of mobile services trying to create new ways for searching and discovering information on the fly.

While the settlement will preserve the status quo in desktop search, he says it won’t make it harder for companies to compete with Google in new, emerging areas of mobile search that aren’t browser based and rely on apps.

“The settlement doesn’t impact the calculus for Apple and how it develops Siri and proceeds with search,” he said. “There is going to continue to be a fair amount of innovation.”

Apple declined to comment on the settlement.

The investigation can be re-opened, but for the time being, it looks like Google is coming out of this relatively unscathed when it comes to its deliver of search results.